February gaming sales figures good news for Nintendo, Microsoft

While Nintendo and Microsoft both showed strong performance during February, …

February can be a hard month for both game and hardware sales in the video gaming industry. Holiday-fueled demand has cooled off, and there usually aren't that many big-name games released. Despite all this, console sales numbers released today by the NPD Group show a very bright sales picture: February sales were up 53 percent from 2006. While the sales information covers an extra week beyond last year's numbers, that's still a very impressive performance.

While next-generation hardware is helping to keep consumer interest in gaming high, Nintendo is definitely leading the charge. The DS and the Wii are dominating the top two slots in sales with 820,000 systems sold between them. This is even more impressive when you consider that in many areas of the US, the Wii is still nearly impossible to find, so demand may be higher than even these numbers indicate. Nintendo also has three slots on the software top ten sales charts, with Wii Play, Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, and Wario Ware: Smooth Moves coming in at numbers two, four, and nine respectively. Nintendo is doing a great job of keeping excitement for both hardware and software high even in this traditionally slow month, and it's paying off very well in terms of sales.

The Xbox 360 came in number four in hardware sales, with a respectable 228,000 units sold. Even better were the sales of their new IP: Crackdown sold 427,000 copies to land in the top slot for software despite a very late start in the month. While the inclusion of the Halo 3 beta invitation may have been a part of that, generally good reviews point to what may be a new franchise for Microsoft. 360 games also enjoyed high placement on the top-ten sales chart, holding the first, seventh, ninth, and tenth places with titles like Gears of War, Lost Planet, and NBA Street Homecourt. Both Gears of War and Lost Planet have been doing very well in maintaining strong sales across multiple months, which is a solid sign for the growth of a mature library.

Sony put a positive spin on its February performance, noting that "February 2007 showed a 67 percent increase in retail dollars generated year-over-year for SCEA in the US with total sales of $377 million." Sony is also holding firm on their plan to shop 6 million PlayStation 3s before the end of their fiscal year in two weeks. The question is how many of these systems will they sell through to consumers; the European launch next week should help. The only console the PlayStation 3 was able to outsell was the Nintendo GameCube, and Sony's 127,000 systems pale in comparison to its two competitors.

The PSP did slightly better with 176,000 sold, but it has to smart when Nintendo's combination of a new system and older handheld so clearly dominate the field and 360 software holds multiple positions on the software chart. Still, with the announcement of the Home online service, as well as strong games like Virtua Fighter 5and MotorStorm, Sony is starting to enjoy some renewed buzz for its system. Hopefully for Sony, buzz will translate into more sales. The PlayStation 2 is still holding the number two sales slot for hardware though, with a still-impressive 295,000 sold. Sony at least has the massive popularity of the PS2 brand to tide it over while it waits for PlayStation 3 sales to improve, a great ace in the hole.

Overall, all the console manufacturers have something to be happy about, even if some of them would rather be happy about something else. Sales this strong in February bode very well for the rest of the year, and the sales of next-generation systems should only increase as the months pass.